...And so I rise from the dead.

No, seriously, sorry about no updates for a few months, but my inactivity mainly stems from being busy and having no idea/inspiration to write. But I might have an idea now, so here's chapter 3. And Lame Title Syndrome strikes again. Huzzah...(It's a curse, I tell you!)

If I still made this too serious, try reading it while playing Groose's Theme in the background. It apparently goes with everything...

Oh yeah, I have no idea if Eirin is aware of Tewi's pranks in canon, but logically, she would be, so let's go with that. (I can't write too much based on the stories in IoTM&IoTE, after all. They might not be canon)

DISCLAIMER:Touhou Project and its characters belongs to ZUN/Team Shanghai Alice

Hakame and Sophie and their Spell Cards belong to me.

Chapter 3: Of Birds and...Wasps?

"That was scary!" Tewi mumbled while nibbling on a rice cracker.

About 15 minutes has passed since the Earth Rabbit returned to Eientei, and the pharmacist and the moon princess had finally managed to calm her down.

"So, from the way she responded, we can at least be certain that she won't come back here for a while." Kaguya stated.

"Most likely." Eirin responded. "I guess I've been a bit mean to her lately..."

"Probably." Tewi chimed in. "Anyone could go crazy after that kind of treatment."

"Are you one to talk, hypocrite?" Eirin smirked. "You've been pretty nasty to her, too, what with all the pranks you've been pulling on her."

"I don't know what you're talking about~" Tewi said innocently, but she squirmed a little in her seat and didn't look the genius in the eye.

"Lying rabbit." She snickered.

Kaguya studied her friend and her ally while having a sip of tea.

"Woah. The mood suddenly changed." She thought. "What happened to the depressing atmosphere?"

She cleared her throat.

"In any case, maybe we should let Reisen be for a while. Let her clear her thoughts, you know? She might come back when she's calmed down a little."

Eirin and Tewi looked up.

"Ah...Yeah. Let's hope for that." They replied at the same time.

Kaguya nodded, thoughtfully placed her chin in her palm and sighed.

"That child needs some time on her own, as well. Though I might start to miss teasing her a little while she's gone..."

"P- Princess..."

..

..

..

Reisen was lost in thought. If one has seen her, they might've thought that she wasn't even aware that she was walking. And technically, she wasn't. She just mechanically put one foot ahead of the other.

She was thinking about that she has no idea where she was going to go next. She hadn't really had time to plan what she was going to do because she had been distracted before she could do so.

"Wow! What's that called? And what's that? Can you use that for anything?"

The distraction in question occasionally pulled her out of her thoughts; The eagle boy, whom she has met in the Bamboo Forest, was ecstatically flying around her in circles and loops, pointing and asking about everything he saw, apparently not really caring anymore about whether or not he got an answer.

"Uuuuh, I really should've thought this through." Reisen thought. "Just mindlessly going in any direction doesn't seem to be the best course of action. Why didn't I make a plan on what I should do next!"

(Somewhere, in the Outside World, the author sneezed.)

Her attention turned to Hakame and his running mouth again. Something was bothering her again...

"Stop."

The Moon Rabbit suddenly raised her hand just as the bird was about to ask another question, but quickly silenced himself.

"Before you ask another question, I have a question for you." She calmly stated.

"Oh. What is it, sister ra-"

"Inaba."

"Excuse me?"

"My name is Reisen Udongein Inaba, but just call me Inaba." Reisen sighed.

"Ah, ok..." Hakame replied. "Miss Inaba, what do you want to ask?"

"Why are you still following me?"

"What?"

"I helped you out of the forest, but you've been following me for the last 15 minutes now." Reisen said. "What do you want, really?"

Hakame politely smiled back at her.

"Didn't I tell you? I got some free time, and with permission from my masters, I was allowed to explore the surface on my own. The best experiences come from discovering things on your own, they say."

"But I told you that you can't come with me!" Reisen replied, sturdily without sounding annoyed. "And stop swinging your sword around like that! You can poke someone's eye out!"

"But I have to practice!"
"You won't get any better if your technique is wrong."

Hakame stared at his sword with dismay.

"But I know how it's really done, and if I study my own technique, I might get better when I see what I do wrong."

"...It really doesn't work that way, but whatever." Reisen replied and shrugged. "Anyway, please stop following me around. You can't come with me."

Hakame closed his mouth. For a while, he looked very thoughtful.

Then, a smile slowly spread on his face as he suddenly looked like he got a stroke of genius.

"But what if I'm not following you?"

Reisen got a look of slight shock on her face.

"...eh?"

Hakame triumphantly folded his arms together with a proud smirk on his lips.

"What if I'm simply heading in the same direction as you? I'm not following you, I just happen to travel on the same road as you."

Reisen didn't know how to respond to that. She wasn't sure whether or not this really was a slight stroke of genius or a logical fallacy.

She grunted disapprovingly, sighed and put her hands on her hips.

"...Even if I said that I don't believe you, you would stick to your explanation, wouldn't you?" She remarked.

"Pretty much." Hakame grinned.

"Uuuh..." Reisen groaned. "Fine. Keep doing whatever you said you're doing. But just remember, if you travel in my direction for too long, I'm just going to assume (know for sure) that you're following me and try to shake you off. (Maybe)"

The eagle threw his hands up in triumph.

"Yay! Success! Ah..."

Suddenly, he seemed to have caught himself in his victory act and cleared his throat.

"Errhm, I mean, I'm glad we've come to an understanding."

"Well, that facade didn't hold for long..." Reisen thought and snickered quietly.

...

...

...

After walking for a while, Reisen started to pay more attention to her surroundings. She looked around and noticed that she was walking through a vast field, full of various wildflowers. She saw everything from azaleas to peonies and even several wild herbs.

"...I've never really noticed this flower field before." She remarked to herself. "Maybe because I don't usually take this route when leaving home."

"Ah! These are the Blossom Plains." Hakame responded. "Whenever I've visited the surface with my masters, we've usually ended up here. Loads of fairies and insect youkai really like this place. My home is around these parts if you just go upwards for a while."

"...I didn't really ask for an answer." Reisen politely remarked.

"Sorry."

"Eh, don't worry about it."

"Oh, and my masters told me that a lot of the herbs around here, while fairly hard to find, can apparently be used for cooking and medica-Gyaah!"
*PICHUN*

Suddenly, something truck Hakame in the back of the head, and he tumbled face- down into the flower field.

"Ah! What happened?" Reisen exclaimed in surprise.

*SWISH*

Something blew right past her ear and struck the ground next to her. As she got a closer look at the object, she frowned in a mix of confusion and surprise.

It was a big stinger.

"What the..." She mumbled. "What kind of creature would fire these things?"

"Ugyuu~ I went *pichun* again ~" Hakame sobbed, his face still planted into the ground.

Reisen got down on her knees next to the eagle.

"...Are you okay? If you want to become a knight, you really need sharp intuition and top senses. I think you need to work a bit on those."

"...But you didn't notice them, either!"
"Well, I'm not a knight, so... Anyway, what would shoot a stinger that big? A mutant bee?"

"...Close enough" Hakame responded and lifted his head.
"Hey~! You over there!"

Reisen looked up.

A small girl was staring at them. She wore a yellow- and black- striped dress with a bell- shaped skirt and a white short- sleeved shirt under. She had blonde hair, fixed with blue ribbons in one ponytail on her left side and one ponytail on the top of her head, and purple eyes. On her feet, she wore white stockings and simple black shoes. She had a belt around her waist, a bell necklace around her neck and a blue ribbon wrapped around her right arm. She had two small antennea on her head and transparent wings on her back.

Her arms were crossed over her chest and she looked very annoyed.

"I shoot stingers at you, and you still ignore me! How rude!"

Reisen raised an eyebrow. Who was the rude one here? Firing stingers at people apparently wasn't rude to the insect.

"...Close enough, eh?" She mumbled. "So, you've encountered her before.?"
"Every time I've visited the surface." Hakame responded and rubbed the back of his head. "A wasp youkai. Her name is Sophie, self- proclaimed boss of these fields."

"Ha! So you've heard of me, bird!" The wasp exclaimed. "The knowledge of my greatness must've finally spread!"

Reisen looked puzzled.

"Every time? She doesn't seem to remember you." She remarked to Hakame.

"She's not very smart, to say the least." The eagle responded. "Or strong."

"Well, typical for an insect, I suppose." Reisen remarked and shrugged.

"Grrr! Stop ignoring me! Stinger Sign [Wasp Hoard]" Sophie yelled and fired several stingers and grey danmaku towards the moon rabbit, who just jumped out of the way.

"Hey now, is that what you call a greeting?" She asked.

Sophie pointed an accusatory finger at the rabbit.

"Greeting intruders? Forget it! Nobody looks at my flowers for free! Now, face the consequences!"

"But we were just pass-"
"I challenge you to a game of danmaku!"

Reisen looked at the insect. For a while, they seemed to be exchanging looks with each other.

Eventually, the moon rabbit opened her mouth.

"...Denied."

The unexpected response made Sophie fall forwards.

"Eh, what?"

"I said denied." Reisen said again.

"But- but why?" Sophie stuttered.

"For one, your introduction was really long, almost unneccessarily so. (4 paragraphs? Come on! I'm the main character here!) I'm very tired and not in the mood for any danmaku. Also, do we honestly have to have a danmaku battle every single time we meet someone new? Is it some kind of unwritten rule of Gensokyo?"

Sophie stared at Reisen in silence with a puzzled expression. The moon rabbit then turned around and started walking away, with Hakame flying next to her.

The wasp stared after them for a while before she came to her senses again.

"Ah! Hey, hey, hey! You can't just drop it like that!" She yelled. "Come back here, you coward! Wasp Sign [Sti-"

She never finished declaring her Spell Card.

"Kyaaaah!"

*PICHU~N*

She fell to the ground, her legs twitching slightly. Reisen had fired a danmaku bullet, and it had hit Sophie right in the forehead.

"I told you I don't want to battle!" She responded with a tone of annoyance. "But I just fired a bullet anyway. There's your match. I won."

The wasp got up to her feet and brushed her clothes. She was shaking, and her eyes were tearing up out of anger.

"Uuuuuuh~! You stupid meanie!" She exclaimed and stomped her foot in the ground. "That does it! I'm going to follow you and find a weak spot! Then, whenever you least expect it; Bam! I'll defeat you! (I've always wanted to go exploring outside of these fields, anyway)"

"Oh, for the love of-" Reisen thought and rubbed her eyes.

"No, please don't do that." She mumbled.

"Silence! You're not the boss of me! I do what I want!" Sophie growled.

"As I said, she's a bit dim and very stubborn." Hakame whispered to Reisen.

"Shut up, bird! You were saying something bad about me, weren't you? I'll show you!" The insect girl yelled and threw herself up in the air at Hakame.

"Ah- ow! Ouch! OUCH! M- my wings! Stop pulling in my- OW! Don't touch my tail!"

Reisen looked at them and sighed. As long as they were bothering each other, she probably could at least tolerate them.

She looked up at the sky. It was a now a very light shade of purple, and the sun was on its way down.

"Hmm. I'm going to have to stop for the night soon..." She thought.

But where would that be? Several suitable locations to spend the night popped up in her head as she kept walking.

"Well, I guess I'll just have to wait and see." She figured and yawned. "Whichever location comes first, I welcome it."

And that's chapter 3. I hope you liked it!

So, Sophie is pretty stupid and mischiveous, as you might figure, and she can manipulate stingers. It is a fairly stupid and useless ability, but I was out of ideas and I thought it was funny. I hope I didn't make her a Mary Sue. But if you find her annoying anyway, she pretty much is meant to be, so my job here is done in that case.

Anyway, please leave a comment and some criticism is always appreciated.

See you next chapter! It won't take as long next time! (I hope)